Open the Road to Al Aqaba, Pave the Road to Peace!

On Sep. 15th 2011 Israeli soldiers barricaded a peace-loving village called Al Aqaba then destroyed several sections of the Peace Road and a three-family home. The Villagers of Al Aqaba ask your help to open the road to get the school bus through.

The walls of earth and bulldozed road means the school bus must now take long detours to get 200 children to their kindergarten and school.

This Sunday, the Palestinian Village of Al Aqaba will work to open its Peace Road for the 3rd time. They rented the bulldozer from Ramallah and brought it in to fill the ditches and smooth out the barriers.

Al Aqaba Village needs your help to keep the road open. When you sign, the petition will be immediately emailed directly to your Senators, Representative and the President.

Letter to

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

President of the United States

Please call the Israeli Embassy and the U.S. State Department on my behalf to urge Israel to open and repave the road to the peaceful West Bank Palestinian village of Al Aqaba.

On Thursday morning, Sep. 15th, soldiers from the Israeli Army barricaded access to, and then destroyed, several sections of the Peace Road, the main road in and out of Al Aqaba village. They did this once before on April 7th. Al Aqaba is a tranquil and conflict-free place where villagers have worked together over the past 20 years to prevent total demolition. The village won a pivotal case in 2002 before the Israeli High Court to stop the Israeli Army from conducting live training exercises there.

Still, the threat of demolition is always upon them. The Israeli Civil Administration has issued demolition orders for nearly all of the homes in Al Aqaba, as well as their medical clinic, a Rebuilding Alliance kindergarten funded by donations from hundreds of thoughtful Americans, and the village mosque, which is built in the shape of a peace sign.

Al Aqaba is a small village in Area C, the portion of the West Bank solely administered by Israel. According to the Israeli Human Rights Group, BIMKOM, the State of Israel is obligated as an occupier to provide appropriate planning and infrastructure to meet the needs of the 150,000 Palestinians who live in Area C. Instead, the State of Israel has blanketed ALL the Palestinian villages in Area C with demolition orders, over 12,500 in total. This is significant because Area C makes up 60% of the West Bank. Israeli settlements are being issued building permits while Palestinian families are issued demolition orders.

Walls of earth and torn roads now create a barricade that forces a small school bus serving 130 kindergartners and 70 school children to make repeated trips over a long detour several times daily.

Your call to the Israeli Embassy will bring home how important it is for governments to pursue trust-building in this critical time. Press the Government of Israel to both open the roads to Al Aqaba and repave the roads they damaged. The village’s children - like all children - need to hold onto their belief in peace, and they need to get to school.